Tuesday, 30 July 2013

Forget Chernobyl, on English motorways
and A roads where thousands of trees line the banks
to make the rapid passage of traffic seem sociable.
The foliage reduces the air and noise pollution,
But however carefully anyone tries to see any wildlife,
as they pass, there will be none there.
All the birds within five miles either side
of the 50,000 miles of Britain's busiest roads
cannot hear each other's song.
Where they cannot hear they cannot court,
and they will not mate or nest,
so instead they have to retreat to quieter places.

Thursday, 18 July 2013

Northern Ireland is such a peaceful place.
Where once we exported strife all year round,
a lot of it centred in Belfast, now the locals
are secure behind so-called peace walls.
Both sides now save their ire for the police
more than their neighbour, and their fury
is scheduled to be ritually vented every July,
with their MLA leading the fray.
But still, I am disturbed by how demilitarisation
has affected the employment market.
With the army shrinking, the police becoming
relatively civil, and high youth unemployment
then private security has had to take up the slack
of young men looking to find that place that meets
their alpha male pretensions.
It could be worse- they could be seeking careers
in the therapy industry.
How many, immature in their claim to superiority
would recognise in their clients and other sufferers
the condition known as Munchausens-by-proxy ?

Wednesday, 17 July 2013

Life is a series of boxes we tick off. One event at a time,
when we have ticked off enough we say
'Been there done that, I don't want the T shirt.
Please, no more.', not daring to ask
how much water it took to make the memorial T shirt.400 gallons, though estimates will vary,
according to which websites you consult.
Nor dare we enquire how much water
it takes to create the experience, where
the weight of the materials is outweighed
by the resulting happiness.The only box
that I want to get ticked off for is my coffin.

In one of the pound-shop chains
in my nearest town, Downpatrick,
I bought some vacuum packed coffee
'Nova Brasilia espresso gold limited edition'
it called itself, and the ingredients were described
on the front and side were in Cyrillic, with
a small extra label on the back in English.
It seems like the the coffee was made for Russians
who wanted to be persuaded to make believe
it came from Brasil, but then it became surplus,
and for export. I am still wondering how it got here.

Tuesday, 16 July 2013

If belief in God is based on human weakness
then we can accept being collectively weak.
We accept rulers changing electoral systems
after they get voted in, so the new leader
can cast himself as president for life.
As they rule, we watch how everyone,
us included, is divided by their use of favours
which puts the entropy into democracy,
and converts us all into accepting oligarchy.
This process repeating itself worldwide
is as certain a proof of Eternity as we deserve.

The President of The Afterlife is God.
His term of office is indefinite, Heaven is his palace,
Hell is his dungeon and his prophets and messengersare his tame voting chamber and civil service.
For us and them belief has replaced debate
as something we muddle through and misunderstand.
Purifying life outside Heaven purifying life is the mandate
that is never completed, which can't change
or be challenged. Since humans like hierarchies
and awarding prizes, then having somebody, anybody
except us, responsible for life-through-decline is natural.

Once the masses worked for distant bosses
and strove daily against hard repetitive labour.
When life proved short for them,
many were quietly glad that one of their number
had met their maker, and gone to the hallelujah side.
Open inequality was how the world was made.
The poor knew how severely they were underpaid,
and under-represented. Why bother with sorrow-
when respite for all was jam in Jerusalem, tomorrow?

Now we are all better misrepresented
and jobs are few, and farther between.
Most work is soft, less desk and paper,
more desktop on laptop, via very fast internet.
Oddly, for it being so abstract, the pressure of work
seems greater for hoping for something real to happen.
When their sense of purpose slackens
many a desk jockey drifts into their own private realm.
For a quarter of their working day they will pursue on-line porn,
hit the social networks, view youtube, etall, then go shopping
for more digital facsimiles of real life, when they could be blogging.

Wednesday, 10 July 2013

When The Rolling Stones played Hyde Park,
44 years ago, to clean the park after the event
the band paid volunteers at the rate of an album
for each sack of rubbish collected, you can hear
about it here. At the time cynics surely scoffed
'Rubbish for rubbish', but with hindsight the idea
seems quite neat-back then albums were worth
quite a lot, and who knows how many of the records
given away extended the life of elderly Dansette record players?

Street food now comes with far more packaging.
than it did in 1969. If the idea were tried today
far more rubbish would be created, and more retrieved,
though more would be recycled. What exchange rate
would the performers set? What weight of crushed cans,
plastic bottles and other detritus per CD would a fan
have to collect to make it attractive to both parties?
How cherished would those CDs be afterwards?

Sunday, 7 July 2013

Going to the Belfast 'Gay Pride Festival'
yesterday for the umpteenth time
in as many years I was struck afresh
by how universal it is that all pride
is half continually miscarried aspiration,
and half the vacuum created by the hot air
of false words inhabiting a false atmosphere.
The most wholesome thought that the event
gave me was that if as seems to be the case-
we all have less to say than we think-
then we should say it quietly, and to ourselves first.
Let good actions speak more clearly for themselves.

Friday, 5 July 2013

I cannot work out how I was meant
to be worth more than the sum of my parts
and yet I failed so.Existential debt hangs over me.
However much I give the kind word
and do the kind deed to try repay in kind
for what I cost the earth, and the people
who's kindness keeps me, the debt
is always more than my worth.
As far as I can account for myself
I am less, and getting lesser with the good will
of others. The longer I am kept the more the interest
in what I cost keeps rising. As I am kept, so my debt-
unpaid and unrepayable-compounds itself.
Life seems to be about putting off fore-closure.

Wednesday, 3 July 2013

'Don't be reckless with other people's hearts,
don't put up with people who are reckles with yours....
Don't waste your time being jealous, sometimes you are ahead.
The race is long and in the end it is only with yourself.
Remember the compliments you recieve, forget the insults.
If you succeed in this tell me how you did it.... '-Kurt Vonnegut

Tuesday, 2 July 2013

I am often mystified by public hostility towards homosexuality,
particularly from breeders who respond so well to advertising.
They knowingly breed and consume with such great abandon,
that half of them can't commit to marriage, for fear of divorce.
It can't be as if gays as minorities-
a mere 5% of the population where they are visible
and they are not blackmailed into silence-
lay much claim to any moral equivalence
with the folk who like to multiply themselves.
Much more likely is the prospect that the mutuality
and support between gays and lesbians is more fractured
for collectively them being far more fragile.

For their needs being more private, they will make
weaker adoptive family amongst one another.
If heterosexuals are so much stronger,
for being bound in units of consumerist family values
they should have far less reason than ever
to feel insecure about the choices of others.

Monday, 1 July 2013

Douglas Adams in his double trilogy
'The Hitch-hikers Guide To The Galaxy'
wrote about friendly lifts that struck up
conversations with the people they conveyed,
as they all ascended or descended the building.
Nowadays where we have cars that 'talk' to us.
They register any significant weight on the seats
and when any person does not put on their seat belt
within thirty seconds the car quietly goes 'beep beep...'
after the first thirty seconds the noise gets louder
and after another thirty seconds gets louder still,
and the volume keeps increasing until the car wails
'I want my mummy' and seeks return to it's manufacturer.